Fashion brand Zara has opened a store dedicated to click and collect orders at Westfield Stratford City in London.
The 2,150 sq ft store, which opened at the weekend, will act as a pop-up unit during the refurbishment and extension of the company’s existing flagship store at the centre. Staff will be equipped with mobile devices to assist customers who will receive orders on the same day if ordering before 2pm or the next day if ordered later.
The store will also include technology to help recommend items to customers with information screens embedded into mirrors triggered by RFID and will also deal with returns and exchanges.
The pop-up will remain open till May at which point the newly extended flagship will also include a dedicated click and collect section within the store and an automated online order collection point serviced by two small warehouses which will enable customers to collect online purchases when it suits them.
This system is designed around an optical barcode reader which scans the QR code or accepts the PIN codes received by customers when they place orders online. In just a few seconds, it delivers the order to a mailbox from which the customer can collect it. Behind the scenes, a dynamic robot moves through a small warehouse with the capacity to handle 2,400 packages simultaneously.
The chairman and CEO of Inditex, Pablo Isla, said both conceptsmark “another milestone in our strategy of integrating our stores with the online world, which defines our identity as a business”.
Image credit: Inditex
